Opening Up (3)

Hadn't we driven the same way twice
/believing in love     /in a Sunday's
autumn light     /in May and two made stupid
with mis-readings     /two
whispering the bedding clean  and vacuuming?
And hadn't two thrilled
uncuffed    /the river as sabbath calm
as any curled sleeping thing
/that rose in a week ten feet—     rose eighteen feet
in winter     /days when the owners
watched themselves—     leaving that half-foot ice
to cut in sheets from cottage parlors
/refining possession say     /where one man
stood considering     /1923
/that love should not seem less     /that the cottage roofs
/made over by the winter
/and the plowed strips     /marked out
by boundary stones
/should not themselves seem less      /and
even less for promises?

 

© Appetite (2)